Verifying Student Disability
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Accommodation Request and Director's Review
The director of Disability Services reviews student requests for reasonable accommodation in terms of student rights to nondiscrimination on the basis of disability. The generic term "reasonable accommodation" indicates that some academic adjustment or service is necessary to ensure the qualified student with a disability the same opportunities as other students. For the accommodation request to pass the director's review, ordinarily it must be corroborated, at student expense, by current, comprehensive, and authoritative medical or psychological documentation.
Documentation Essentials
The impairment must either be shown to substantially limit one or more major life activities or necessitate specified reasonable accommodations to be considered a disability. While that consideration does not require extensive analysis, nonetheless the documentation should be current, comprehensive, and authoritative.
- Current
- The documentation should address the current state of the functional limitations so we can work with the student to identify effective services and accommodations. It should specifically describe how the impairment limits major life activities or necessitates reasonable accommodation, currently.
- Comprehensive
- Documentation should tell whether the impairment and functional limitations are temporary or long-term, unless permanency is obvious. If the impairment is temporary, the documentation should include a prognosis. Diagnostic or treatment history should be included, though judiciously, in respect for the student's right to privacy.
- Documentation should contain additional supporting information that would aid the student and director in identifying effective reasonable accommodations. Some examples are: treatment plans, medications and their impact on patient functioning, triggering mechanisms, activities or conditions to be avoided or modified, safety information, etc.
- Authoritative
- The documentation should be prepared by a practitioner qualified through specific training and licensure to describe or diagnose and (when applicable) treat the impairment. Documentation should be typed or clearly handwritten and should appear on the letterhead of the provider, with signature and other identifying information such as type of practice and license. Handwritten notes on prescription pads are very unlikely to pass review for clarity and comprehensiveness.
- Documentation prepared by a member of the student's family is inappropriate and will not pass the director’s review.
Verifying Learning Disability
Specific learning disability can be diagnosed and reported on by psychologists, school psychologists, and other professionals in the field of special education who have taken professional training and who have experience in learning-disability assessment. An assessment report should contain: comprehensive objective measures of aptitude, information processing, and academic achievement. Standard scores and percentiles are highly preferred over grade equivalence scores, which are not objective measures, though they may have meaning in special education.
No specific list of required tests is kept. However, aptitude assessments such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Woodcock-Johnson Test of Mental Aptitude are common favorites in the field, because they measure aptitude in the context of information processing and academic functioning. Additional tests of information processing that specifically address sensory perception, memory, and recall are commonly deemed important by the provider. The Wechsler Memory Scale and similar tests are often employed as well. A favorite achievement test in the field is the Woodcock-Johnson Test of Achievement or other similar instruments which objectively measure the academic achievement across a broad range of skills having to do with reading, writing, spelling, mathematics, and other specific academic tasks required of students in postsecondary education. Most important, for all three assessment areas, screening devices such as the K-BIT and the WRAT do not stand on their own as comprehensive measures.
Specific statistical aptitude-achievement discrepancy is not required to establish the presence of significant learning disability, though if that approach is taken in the assessment, the discrepancy should be addressed in the report. In addition to presentation and analysis of test scores, the provider may apply educational history, student experience as assessed in a clinical interview, or professional observations of student behavior during the assessment procedure. Subjective information may corroborate or contradict objective data, so the provider should take care to report relevant findings and state whether a specific and substantial learning disability is present. Finally, though accommodation recommendations are welcome and will be considered as a part of the Disability Services review, they are not required and may not be followed - depending on educational practicability and reasonableness for postsecondary education.
Documenting Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
As with other impairments, physical and mental, ADHD may or may not cause the student in question to be an individual with a disability. Thus, for ADHD to necessitate reasonable accommodation, it must be disabling to the individual in the same way as other physical and mental impairments. The documentation must be prepared by a licensed professional who has had specific training to make differential mental diagnoses. This include: psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, pediatricians, and some social workers, for example. Family practitioners and school psychologists are not ordinarily qualified to conduct comprehensive assessments of ADHD for purposes of documenting disability, even though family practitioners routinely prescribe ADHD medications. if the documentation was prepared by such practitioners who have had specific training in ADHD diagnosis and treatment, however, the report should clearly say so. Most important, a brief note on a prescription pad from a family practitioner indicating that the student has ADHD, takes medication to treat ADHD, and needs unspecified reasonable accommodation is least likely to pass the director’s review, for its lack of comprehensiveness.
Educational Records
An IEP or Section 504 Plan ordinarily does not stand on its own as documentation of adult disability. While such documents may serve to supplement clinical information, a child's need of special education does not necessarily mean that the child will become an adult with a disability as indicated by more general regulations confirming disability rights. Frequently, educational records such as an IEP contain comprehensive disability assessment prepared by an authoritative provider, however. Records of that kind are routinely taken by Disability Services as authoritative disability documentation, and they should be submitted in support of the student's reasonable accommodation request, especially when there is a long history of special education or services under a section 504 plan.
Extended Review
Occasionally, students present documentation which clearly suggests that the impairment in question may very well impose disability on the student requesting a reasonable accommodation, but the documentation is insufficient to pass the Disability Services review conclusively. In such cases, reasonable accommodation is generally begun, and the review is extended to allow time for the director of Disability Services, student, and documentation provider to work together to complete the review process. The student will receive specific information from Disability Services about what additional information is required. Often, a clarifying letter from the provider would suffice to complete the review. Occasionally, however, a new comprehensive disability assessment is required.